Archive for the 'ECOSOC' Category

Outrage over UN’s Sudan election discredits prior apologetics

Published by
unwatch
- at February 27, 2013 in ECOSOC, Human Rights Watch and Sudan. 0 Comments

Néstor Osorio, president of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), has informed delegations that Sudan — whose leader is wanted for genocide by the International Criminal Court — would chair the humanitarian affairs segment of its annual session. A sharp protest by Canada, the US, and the EU has now sparked further consultations. Click here for details.

The welcome new outrage by Western diplomats over the UN’s legitimizing of Sudan discredits earlier attempts by several UN players to minimize Khartoum’s political victory.

When UN Watch first protested Sudan’s November election to ECOSOC, Human Rights Watch’s Peggy Hicks — in a bizarre move for a human rights activist  clearly opposed to genocide in Darfur — rushed to Twitter to downplay the move.

Hicks, herself a former UN human rights official, sought to stem outrage over Sudan’s election by challenging UN Watch’s description of ECOSOC as a top UN body dealing with human rights. Continue reading ‘Outrage over UN’s Sudan election discredits prior apologetics’

UN: Sudan to Chair ECOSOC Humanitarian Affairs

Published by
unwatch
- at February 21, 2013 in ECOSOC, Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and Sudan. 3 Comments

When Sudan was elected at the end of January as Vice-President of the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), UN Watch, together with film star Mia Farrow rightly objected.

ECOSOC is a top U.N. body that regulated human rights groups, shapes the composition of key U.N. women’s rights bodies, and adopts resolutions on subjects ranging from Internet freedom to female genital mutilation. Genocidal Sudan, therefore, seemed a highly inappropriate choice.

Yet UN Watch’s calls to condemn this appointment fell on deaf ears, with neither UN chief Ban Ki-moon nor human rights commissioner Navi Pillay making a statement against this absurdity.

Last week, however, Sudan’s appointment became even more outrageous when ECOSOC President Néstor Osorio of Columbia informed delegations that Sudan would be chairing the humanitarian affairs segment of the Council’s work.

Continue reading ‘UN: Sudan to Chair ECOSOC Humanitarian Affairs’

ECOSOC Focus on Youth While Appointing Children’s Rights Abuser Sudan as Vice President

Published by
unwatch
- at January 31, 2013 in ECOSOC and Sudan. 1 Comment

Yesterday the U.N elected Sudan as vice-president of its 54-member Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), a top U.N. body that regulates human rights groups, shapes the composition of key U.N. women’s rights bodies, and adopts resolutions on subjects ranging from Internet freedom to female genital mutilation. UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer, together with Mia Farrow have already spoken out against this absurdity.

Not only is it preposterous that genocidal Sudan will oversee the work of various UN human rights commissions — including the Commission on the Status of Women — but Sudan is an extremely unsuitable candidate for the direct work of ECOSOC itself.

Continue reading ‘ECOSOC Focus on Youth While Appointing Children’s Rights Abuser Sudan as Vice President’

Mia Farrow Condemns U.N. Election of Genocidal Sudan as Vice-President of Top Human Rights Body

Published by
unwatch
- at January 30, 2013 in ECOSOC and Sudan. 6 Comments

Mia Farrow, the film star and human rights activist, today condemned the U.N.’s election of Sudan as vice-president of its 54-member Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), a top U.N. body that regulates human rights groups, shapes the composition of key U.N. women’s rights bodies, and adopts resolutions on subjects ranging from Internet freedom to female genital mutilation.

The UN’s election of Sudan took place yesterday: click here for UN announcement.

“The election of Sudan as vice-president of this influential U.N. council is incomprehensible and unacceptable,” said Farrow, who last year headed a protest campaign, organized by UN Watch and 30 other human rights groups, that helped pressure Sudan to withdraw its candidacy for another body, the UN Human Rights Council.

“Sudanese president Al Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity and genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan,” said Farrow. “President Al Bashir and his regime are orchestrating a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Sudan’s border regions, the Nuba Mountains and the Blue Nile, where some 700,000 civilians face starvation and are denied access to humanitarian aid because of incessant aerial bombardments.”

“It’s an outrage,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, the Geneva-based non-governmental human rights group.

“Electing genocidal Sudan as leader of a global human rights body is like choosing Jack the Ripper to guard a women’s shelter,” said Neuer.

Continue reading ‘Mia Farrow Condemns U.N. Election of Genocidal Sudan as Vice-President of Top Human Rights Body’

Syrians slaughtered, but U.N. too busy condemning Israel 3 times

Published by
Hillel Neuer
- at July 30, 2012 in ECOSOC, Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and Syria. 59 Comments

As Syrians continue to be slaughtered, the U.N. is once again too busy condemning Israel to respond to those pleading for help in Aleppo and elsewhere.

The world body’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the principal organ under the U.N. Charter tasked with addressing human rights and fundamental freedoms, has just concluded its annual session by turning a blind eye to the ongoing massacres by the Assad regime. Instead,  a list of all its resolutions for the entire world shows that ECOSOC condemned only one single country: Israel. Two resolutions were adopted against Israel, and one report.

Continue reading ‘Syrians slaughtered, but U.N. too busy condemning Israel 3 times’

U.N. Hypocrisy: Syria accuses Israel of violating freedom of the press

Published by
unwatch
- at July 28, 2009 in ECOSOC, Middle East and Syria. 0 Comments

During a meeting today of the U.N. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in Geneva, the United States called a report on Palestinians unbalanced, and described it as part of a ritual at the U.N. to demonize Israel.

That ritual was in full form today when the government of Syria, the Baathist tyranny of Bashir al-Assad, accused Israel of being the world’s only country refusing to abide by international law, in a manner unseen since apartheid South Africa. The Syrian representative said that Israel arrested dissenting journalists, and he lamented “double standards” on Israel.

Whatever Israel’s flaws, Freedom House’s annual survey shows that freedom of speech and freedom of the press find far greater protection there than in any other country in the Middle East.

Syria should be the last one to throw stones on this issue. It regularly arrests and detains its political opponents without fair trial, including bloggers, political analysts, and human rights activists. Pro-democracy activist Kamal Labwani continues to languish in a Syrian prison, serving his third of a 12-year term, despite the recent call for his release by Human Rights Watch in April. The U.N. found his arrest “arbitrary and thus unlawful.”

U.N. Denies Status to Christian Charity After China Objects

Published by
unwatch
- at July 27, 2009 in ECOSOC, Freedom of Religion, Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and NGOs. 0 Comments

GENEVA, July 27, 2009 - UN Watch, the Geneva-based human rights monitoring group, condemned the U.N.’s decision today to reject an international Christian charity as a non-governmental organization (NGO), a form of observer status, after it refused Beijing demands to disclose the addresses of its Chinese members, and “concerns” by Russia, Egypt, Cuba, Pakistan, and Sudan about its “ability to contribute” to the world body. Continue reading ‘U.N. Denies Status to Christian Charity After China Objects’